Ah so I finally get a chance to create some new artwork! I had a nice discussion with my producer over at Strategy First today, and one of the items that came up was the idea of 'Chop shops' around the city so you could sell stolen cars/parts for money, etc.

Also I haven't really ever talked about the whole process I have to go through to create new content for the game...so I'll do that in this entry as well...I have screenshots from the whole 6 hour creation process of this building.

Here's the (90%) final product...

*****NOTE THE 'COCACOLA' signs will be gone later tonight, I don't plan on leaving them in-game. They were part of the reference images I took in downtown Raleigh.*******



The service station is about 90% complete, I still have to texture the area around the building, as well as add more stuff to the interior. I've already textured and created the objects I just have to place them into the building.





I really like the bloom effect in the screenshots, though if you think it's too much let me know. Here's a screenshot showing the contrast.



I'm suprised it looks this good without the use of HDR. (If anybody still thinks this looks overexposed....I'll have a 'Disable super sweet bloom effect because I suck' option in-game for you to use :-p I took it down about 30% from the screenshots I posted last entry.

Here's the process that I have to go through to create the buildings for the game...

Here are the raw images I used for this building, taken in downtown Raleigh years ago.


Step 1: size the building onto a blank grid of tiles, and started designing the back.


Step 2: Finish the fence around the back.


Step 3: Add roof.


Step 4: Use textured box to 'cut up' the texture to add geometric detail.


Step 5: You can see the details I added first, the gutter, signs, etc.


Step 6: I cut up the front of the building based on a side view of the textured guide cube.


Step 7: I textured the cut up wall, and put it into place on the building


At this point I also threw it in-game and started to fine-tune the scale of the building.



Step 8: Added glass and door groups to the building, in prep for the interior groups.


Step 9: Started to texture/create the interior 'shop' portion, and 'garage' portion. This is where I stopped, after this it's just creation of various assets that go into the building.


All buildings in the game use a 512x512 texture for the exterior, and a 256x256 texture for the interior, as well as a common glass texture shared between all building assets.

Comments are welcome. I hope somebody found this interesting :-)

- Dan